MElenchon, Prime Minister? On the strength of his presidential score, the leader of La France insoumise continues to urge voters to offer him a parliamentary majority in the next legislative elections to send him to Matignon. He said again, Sunday May 1, from Paris: “If I have to be a candidate, it will be in Marseille. But right now… he’s not sure of anything. Elected easily in 2017 in a popular constituency in the city center historically anchored on the left, between the Panier which is gentrifying and the ultra-poorized Belle-de-Mai, the Insoumis deputy has not yet made his decision for a possible bis repetita .
Contradictory ? You don’t have to be elected to run for Matignon. And it’s true that we’ve seen very little of him over the past two years, in what he considers to be his ideal lair, the Mediterranean laboratory of his political strategies. The preparation of the presidential election and the sanitary confinements forced him to travel, to redo his apartment at the Gare de l’Est, in Paris, not far from the headquarters of LFI, his anchor point. Tense relations with other leaders of the Marseille left also kept him at a distance, he who quickly gave up getting involved in the negotiations that led to the Marseille Spring, a coalition that won the municipal elections in 2020.
“But there would be logic for left-wing voters, if he represented himself here, agrees Yannick Ohanéssian, boss of the PS federation of Bouches-du-Rhône. A new parachute drop, on the other hand, could go less well. A thinly veiled allusion to Manuel Bompard, Mélenchon’s campaign manager, who is believed to succeed him here. He had also accompanied his boss to Marseille, when he came to vote in the first round in a school in his circle. On the campaign documents of the Insoumis where names flourish everywhere in Marseille, this remains the domain of the “reserved”. Something mysterious.
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Going up the Boulevard des Dames, this Sunday, May 1 in Marseille, clusters of demonstrators raise a laughing fist in the direction of the parliamentary office of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. “We’re here, we’re here…” they sing, forgiving the absence of the MP, who is used to parades here. But the national negotiations in progress encourage those who dream of being the leader of a government of cohabitation to stay on the banks of the Seine. “He had warned us”, indicates the activist LFI Kalila Sevin who leads a popular action group in this constituency where her candidate gathered more than 50% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election. “We knew that if the negotiations did not progress, he would stay up there with Manu Bompard. Otherwise, they marched with us. »
Postponed ? “There will be no difficulty working with the rebels as we have been doing for five years,” smiles Nouriati Djambae, local elected EELV who has given up running for the legislative elections in the constituency. “A little disappointed” to see that LFI has left environmentalists only a circumference of the southern districts “well to the right, difficult to win for us”, it relies above all on a “clearly visible logo. I would have liked a little more resistance on our part to the negotiations, but you also have to think about the finances of the party. And the citizens need a union on the left”.
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On the Place de Lenche where the cutlery is gently set up on the terraces, this Monday morning, the atmosphere is not chicanery either. “It would be nice if they got along without too many ulterior motives and if there were a lot of left-wing deputies, hopes Mathieu, serving a long coffee. The left in these neighborhoods is easy, but it has to put weight on Macron. “While waiting to receive the new campaign posters on Tuesday morning, those featuring “Prime Minister” under “Popular Union”, Kalila Sevin is organizing voter registration and door-to-door “thank you” meetings. We are optimistic. We have seen so many negotiations fail here that we couldn’t quite believe in a union of the left. But what is happening is great. Especially because this union is made on a common programmatic trunk, not on a stack of logos. »
Without getting wet
Still, everything is not yet recorded, that the vagueness will remain as long as the leader of the Insoumis has not formalized his decision. “The union is a fight, recalls the socialist Yannick Ohanéssian. It is essential, but it does not mean submission. Sunday, we were all united to parade, including the mayor Benoît Payan. Proof that it’s time to unite and that it works, provided we respect our differences. “A Payan who has not paid his contribution to the PS for more than a year and who prefers to observe without getting wet, contenting himself with noting that “everyone must agree. Political parties have the responsibility to propose an alternative and a social and ecological offer. I call on them to do so”. An opening towards Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
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Thati whose presence has helped to catalyze common fights around schools, civic actions in underprivileged neighborhoods or demonstrations against pollution from cruise ships, is long overdue. He also wants to know what his partners are ready to concede to him. “The negotiations here will be a balance between this local history and the results of the presidential election, explains Mohamed Bensaada, one of the leaders of the Insoumis in Marseille. The Printemps Marseille comrades will also discuss the presidential election and so will we, thinking about what happened in Marseille. In this city which saw Mélenchon come out on top on April 10 with 31.1% of the vote, the ground remains fertile.